regular team in time to
play in _the_ game of the season, the struggle with the redoubtable
Troop One, which would end the series and decide the championship.
But the majority had no such dominating incentive. Their interest flagged
continually, and it was only by a constant appeal to their scout spirit,
by rebuke and ridicule, interspersed with well-timed jollying, that they
could be kept to the scratch. When Dale Tompkins was given the position
of right tackle, the boy whose place he had taken openly rejoiced,
and not a few of his companions viewed the escape with envy.

The regulars started with the ball, and the first down netted them eight
yards. The second plunge through the line was almost as successful;
the third even more so. The scrub played apathetically, each fellow for
himself. They lacked cohesion, and many of the individuals opposed the
rushes half-heartedly and without spirit. Little Saunders, the scrub
quarter, while working at full pressure himself, seemed to have grown
discouraged by past failures to spur the fellows on. Occasionally he
snapped out a rasping appeal for them to get together and do something,
but there was a perfunctory note in his voice which told how little
faith he had in their obeying.

To Ward, playing at left half on the regulars, it was an old story
which had ceased, almost, to fret him. He had come to feel that the
utmost he could hope for was to keep the scrub together and gain what
practice was possible from their half-hearted resistance. Keeping his eye
on Tompkins, he noted with approval that the boy was playing a very
different sort of game. He flung himself into the fray with snap and
energy, tackling well, recovering swiftly, and showing a pretty knowledge
of interference. But it was soon apparent that his work failed more or
less because of its very quickness. At every rush he was a foot or
two ahead of the sluggish Vedder at guard or the discouraged Morris
playing on his right. He might get his man and frequently did, but one
player cannot do all the work of a team, and the holes in the line
remained as gaping as before.

The regulars scored a touchdown and, returning to the center of the
field, began the process anew. There was a sort of monotonous iteration
about their advance that presently began to get a little on Sherman's
nerves. The crisp, shrill voice of Court Parker calling the signal, the
thud of feet over the turf, the crash as the wedge of bodies struck th